Friday, February 15, 2013

Development Break Up

It's been a really hard choice. I guess breaking up is always difficut. But now, after some time, I can explain it all.

If you've been following this blog you surely know how much I love Vampire: the Masquerade. I managed to form a team of highly talented individuals who shared my love for Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. We all devoted our best efforts to deliver a great sequel and a great vampire RPG. However, after some months of intense development, I realized it was becoming too tense and problematic. We were not enjoying development and I'm sure the game would reflect that at some point or another. So I decided to stop development and clear my thoughts for a while. Also, I closed the blog since it was too painful to talk or think about Vampire the Masquerade: Renaissance.

Now, with a little more of perspective, it's time to wrap things up and explore new concepts.

Development is stopped. I'm taking my time to re-design the entire game with the accumulated experience from the first iteration. When the time comes, I will start development again. New game, new team, new technology.

I just recently saw this, I recently found this amazing project. I really hope you will continue one day, I've read a lot about Vampire the Masquerade. It's too bad that you guys are breaking up. But yeah, don't let this bring you down! It's whatever you feel like doing. I wish you good luck with the fresh start. I will keep an eye out for all of this.

I am really sorry to hear this. You guys are amazing and this was a really cool concept, Bloodlines NEEDS a sequel. Hovewer it's allways sad when things don't work out. I really hope this game sees the light of the day someday.However, since we're talking about a fresh start, I'll add my 2 cents :D1 make the gameplay revolve around 3 play styles. Fight, stealth and talk.No dice system with the fight and stealth (nobody wants to shoot a precise hit to the head with is sniper rifle and see his bullet disappear, or walk slowly in pitch black darkness and be spotted as if he was a christmas tree), but a dynamic dice system with the talk is necessary and fun.The damage of the guns has to be fixed no matter what the ability of the player is, however they have to be expensive, difficult to get and balanced. The only ability that counts with guns is handling. So better recovery from recoil and faster recharge. With melee weapons and diplomacy abilities must be crucial. Stealth has to be more a matter of patience and planning then just abilities. Sure the occasional invisibility power is what makes it great, but it has to be a work of thought.2 KEEP IT SMALL BUT GOOD. There's no reason to make a map as big as Alaska if it ends up being empty and boring as Follout's. There's no reason to give the player 250 choices and then make the game go one way no matter what you did. It's better to have small hubs full of detail and good characters, good dialogs, a good amount of quests and 5-10 SIGNIFICANT choices that really change the game plot. Keep up with the good work, you're a great game designer Emanuel!And I'm sorry for my English.

Well, thanks a lot for your 2 cents. I totally love your RPG principles: fight, stealth and talk and keep it small but good. I can't say I agree with all your choices, but they are coherent and really valuable. Thanks again :D